The case for a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton

America tried to let Hillary Clinton off the hook. Despite cries of “Lock her up” during the campaign, most of the nation had little appetite for prosecuting her after the election, with even Donald Trump willing to give her a free pass.

“I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t,” Trump told the New York Times two weeks after his victory. “She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways.”

But the Clinton email scandal, like Clinton herself, won’t go away. It remains a blot on the legacy of the Obama administration, the Justice Department and the FBI, and now comes fresh evidence that the investigation that cleared her was a total sham.

The revelation from the Senate Judiciary Committee that J. Edgar Comey drafted his statement exonerating her about two months before FBI agents interviewed Clinton or 16 other witnesses confirms suspicions that the probe was neither honest nor thorough. When the outcome is decided long before the investigation is over, the result can’t be trusted.